Remembering Queen Elizabeth II: Holidays at her majesty's estate

(Editor's note: Republished from Dec. 20, 1998.)

Whatever Americans' image of England's Queen Elizabeth II, it isn't of a woman who drives her own Land Rover through a muddy field to pass a day in the rain, watching pheasants and hare sprout from beet fields and bracken.

Yet such a scene is not uncommon on this 21,000-acre estate, where the Royal Family has shot for more than a century.

Not many days ago, in a thick wood, amid a downpour worthy of an English winter, the queen watched intently as Tony Parnell sent his black Labrador for a difficult retrieve.

Appearing altogether indifferent to the elements, the queen wore a silk scarf, waterproof coat with hood, and rubber boots. In her hand, as always when in the field, was a walking stick.

The occasion was the 1998 British Retriever Championship, which the queen hosts at Sandringham, usually every five years.

An animal fancier, the queen keeps about 25 Labradors at Sandringham, where she also stables her thoroughbreds. These are in addition to the Welsh corgis she favors as house dogs, and the many springer spaniels kept on the estate to push pheasants and other game toward "guns," or shooters during "drives" in which 200 or more birds might be felled.

But for now, there was the matter of a downed woodcock that Parnell and his dog, Blackharn Arron, must retrieve.

The bird - perhaps half again as big as the comparable American specimen - had appeared from the thick bracken to Parnell's right. A shot from a vintage double-barrel had nicked the bird and initiated its helicopter-like counter-rotation and descent about 80 yards ahead.

Parnell and his dog had been walking in line through the cover with an assortment of judges, guns and beaters.

The beaters' charge was to dig out game from the cover, at times whacking the bracken with walking sticks in order to push hares, rabbits and birds ahead of the guns, whereupon they were shot - or shot at.

All of this was done in near silence, decorum being an important part of the undertaking.

Yet there is utilitarianism at work here, too. Unlike in America, where the sale of wild game is illegal, in England, game is sold to various markets. In Sandringham's case this might be a restaurant in the nearby city of King's Lynn, or perhaps a butcher shop in London, a 3 1/2-hour drive to the south.

To maximize the efficiency of harvests - to ensure that game does not flush out of gun range - guns, beaters, dogs and dog handlers proceed quietly through shooting fields.

So it was that when the shot rang out that dropped the woodcock, it was bracketed by nary a human sound, save, perhaps, for the crack of walking stick against bracken.

James Mitchell, one of the championship's four judges, acknowledged the bird's fall by pointing to it with his walking stick, indicating to Parnell the approximate location of the woodcock. Then Mitchell said, "16" - Parnell's assigned number in the trial - whereupon Parnell released Arron, the 5-year-old Lab he had bred and upon which he pinned his hopes for his first national title.

Watching intently in the heavy cover was a small group that included - in addition to Parnell, the gun and the judges - the queen and her aide-de-camp, which in somewhat less formal quarters might be called a bodyguard. Also there was a lady friend of the queen's, as well as a writer from a British sporting magazine, and me.

Parnell is a widely respected British retriever trainer and field-trialer who has judged that nation's retriever championship. But this would not be his day, for the woodcock somehow dropped in a spot that Arron, for all of his scouring of the area where the bird had fallen, could not find.

In an American retriever trial, if a dog cannot find a bird, the dog is dismissed, and the test, or "series," as it is often called, is reset so the next dog can run under identical, or nearly identical, conditions.

In England, when one dog can't find a bird, another is sent, and, if necessary, another still.

So it was that John Halstead, a multiple winner of the British national retriever championship, watched Parnell's dog work with laser-like focus. He knew that if Arron did not succeed in finding the woodcock, he might be directed by the judges to send his dog.

Rain pummeled the contestants and their charges. In all, four dogs were sent for the woodcock by four handlers.

She knew firsthand how difficult the sometimes waist-high cover could be for a dog to hunt, and she seemed to want now to see how the best stock in Great Britain fared in this most difficult cover.

When the fourth and last dog had been called up, and the bird remained afield, the judges conferred for a moment.

Parnell would in all likelihood be dropped from the competition. Dogs sent subsequently would perhaps also be dismissed. Or they might be given what in effect were demerits that could only be counter-weighed by exceptional work later in the trial.

However, if upon inspection the judges found the bird themselves, all dogs that had been sent for the retrieve would be dropped.

So it was with concern bordering on unease that Parnell, Halstead and the other handlers watched the judges walk to the area of the woodcock's demise - and return a short time later with the bird in hand.

Sensing their disappointment, and understanding it, Queen Elizabeth offered amid the cold rain a kind smile.

A sporting tradition

A certain efficacy in the field, whether a proficiency with dogs or horses or guns - often all three - has long been the hallmark of the Royal Family.

Prince Phillip, for instance, is a crack shot, as is his son, Prince Charles. Princes William and Henry, the sons of Charles and the late Princess Diana, also are good in the shooting field, with William, the elder, said to be a natural with a shotgun.

In generations past, particularly in the past century, extravagant royal shooting parties were held at Sandringham.

The difference between the two measurements - often significant - was an indication not of the quality of shooting, but of the amount of food and drink consumed.

One story has it that long ago the King of Prussia was invited to Sandringham to shoot.

Arriving early, he asked if he could walk the grounds with a gun in search of game. Permission was granted.

When he returned, he reported he had shot "two peasants."

"You mean two pheasants," came the response.

A royal party

On the championship's second evening, following only by a few hours the demise of Parnell, Halstead and the two other contestants, the queen hosted a party for the field-trialers and other invited guests.

On the two prior occasions I have attended this event, it has been held in Sandringham House, a massive structure that is a testament to the rich history of what was once the world's most powerful nation.

This year, because Prince Charles was in residence, the party was held in a building that sits just across the road.

Parnell and I have been friends for a dozen or so years. In his visits to the Twin Cities, he also has made many other friends, some of whom accompanied me to England a few weeks ago.

Each in one way or another is a dog lover.

None of us asked how he did it, but somehow Parnell wrangled invitations to the queen's party for our entire group.

Which set in motion the opportunity for all of us, or nearly all of us, to talk to the queen - in some cases about horses, in others about dogs.

An interesting - and interested - woman who is knowledgeable as well about American retrievers and American retriever trials, the queen, as it happens, has animal problems of her own.

Her search for a new thoroughbred stud, for instance, has been problematic. She said she had recently been outbid for such a horse by a Japanese businessman.

To which we mostly nodded, as if vexed by the same dilemma.

A winner emerges

On the championship's third and final day, the sun, heretofore a complete stranger, shone brightly on the lowlands of Sandringham estate.

With only a dozen dogs remaining in competition, the trial promised to be over by noon or shortly thereafter.

Initially, there would be a walk-up similar to the ones held the first two days, in which dogs and handlers joined guns, judges and beaters in a line maybe 125 yards long.

Game-finding displayed by the contestants on this morning was extraordinary, with some dogs trailing wounded birds for up to 50 yards through thick cover before pouncing on them and returning them to their handlers.

One such retrieve was made by Steve Jolly's 4-year-old black Labrador, Garendon Captain. The same dog had distinguished itself similarly on the trial's first two days, and now, late in the morning of the third day, Captain appeared to lead the contest, with only a final test - a driven pheasant shoot - between him and the championship.

The driven shoot began after the queen and her party had organized themselves on one side of the guns, and the gallery had organized itself on the other side.

On cue, the queen's beaters and their springer spaniels pushed through a long stretch of woods, rousting pheasants by the dozen into the air.

On a slight ridge overlooking a marsh were aligned the remaining dogs, their handlers and the judges. Behind the dogs, in the marsh, stood the guns.

When the drive concluded, the dogs were sent in sequence down the ridge, across a creek, through the marsh and onto a plowed field, which by then was scattered with dead birds.

Each dog did well, but none better than Captain.

A short while later, on a field scattered with vehicles, people and dogs, Queen Elizabeth II climbed onto a makeshift stage, around which the championship's contestants and gallery gathered.

The queen was thanked by the trial organizers for the use of her grounds, and for her support of the country sports, including the retriever championship.

To this the queen smiled warmly and nodded.